Learn English with Stories | Look Before You Leap

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Go there, join and commit to my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. And remember, Effortless English VIP members, you also get... Our topic today, Learn English with Stories, another story from Aesop's Fables, and quite a famous idiom, very, very, very common idiom, look before you leap.

So again, we see that so many common idioms in English, and other languages too, come from Aesop's fables. And this is certainly a very, very, very common one. Look before you leap. To leap means to jump.

It means to make a big jump. So before you jump, you should look. Look where you're jumping. That's the title. Of course, we're live today. We're live on Facebook.

I mean, no, no, no, no, no, we're not. We're on YouTube. We're live on YouTube today, and we have Alexi and Bufendra and Anand and lots of our regular people. Liza Isol, Ahmed, Ibrahim Ali, of course, Vladislav, of course, and many others.

Hey, Manuel, good to see you, Abedamane. Welcome, guys. All right, let's just jump in, shall we? Let's read the story. I'll read the story first. This one's a little longer, actually.

It's a full page. Most of these are very short. Some of these are just like a little paragraph. And this one's a little bit longer. It's one page, but not too long.

So the name of it is Look Before You Leap. And as usual, we have animal characters, the fox. We see in his stories, the foxes are not very nice. They're clever, but they're not very nice.

They're always cheating people, right? In these stories, the foxes are constantly cheating people. So it's kind of a warning, of course, about people, human beings. There are humans in the world, and they also constantly, constantly cheating other people.

So, it's a little bit of a warning to us. We have to be careful when we're dealing with other people, especially people we don't know. But let's get to the story.

A fox tumbled into a water tank. He could not get out. Along came a thirsty goat. Seeing the fox, asked him if the water was good. The fox jumped at the chance.

He sang the praises of the water. With eloquence, he urged the goat to come down. The goat was so thirsty, he went down into the water tank without stopping to think, and he drank his fill.

Then they began to consider how to get out again, how to get up again. I have an idea, said the fox. If you're willing to do something to help us both...

Be kind, put your feet against the wall and hold your horns straight up. Then I can jump up and I can pull you up too. The goat was happy to comply. The fox clambered nimbly over his shoulders.

He reached the edge of the tank and he began to leave. The goat complained that he had broken their agreement. But he only said, the fox said, you have more hairs in your beard than your brains. Then you have brains in your head.

You're not smart. Otherwise, you wouldn't have gone down without thinking how you're going to get up. So you see again, the foxes are really... kind of nasty bad people.

And they're nasty bad. There are people like this in the world that are constantly lying and cheating. They blame everybody else. And that's what the foxes are usually like in these stories so far.

And then we have the message at the end of the story from Aesop. He says, A sensible man never embarks on an enterprise until he can see his way clear to the end.

All right, there you go. There you go. All right, let's go back to the beginning. Let's find out the meaning of this and learn some of this vocab. The title, look before you leap.

Look before you jump. Remember, a leap is a jump. Very similar meaning, leap and jump. So, look before you jump. We have a fox. He tumbled into a water tank.

Tumbled means fell. Kind of to fall and to roll at the same time. So you fall down and you kind of roll around. That's called tumbling. To tumble is the verb.

To tumble. So he fell into a water tank. The fox did. So he's at the bottom. There's water. And he can't get out. It's too deep. He cannot get out by himself.

So then he's down there and a thirsty goat, goat right with the horns, a thirsty goat comes along. And the fox says, ah, the fox is clever. He's going to cheat him. He says, ah, good, I'll get the goat to help me.

So the goat asks him, is the water good? And the fox says, yes, yes, the water is good. He sings the praises of the water. is kind of an idiom to sing praises singing like ah but to sing praises means to compliment to say very good things about something he sings the praises of the water means he says oh the water is great it's so wonderful come down here Mr.

Goat he urged the goat to come down to urge is kind of like to persuade to push right try to persuade come on come on come on that's to urge The goat was so thirsty, he went down into the tank without stopping to think. So the goat didn't think. He didn't think, how can I get back out?

He just was so thirsty, he wanted to drink the water. And he listened to the fox. So he drank his fill. To drink his fill means he drank as much as he wanted to.

Again, a little bit of an idiom. To drink your fill means... Drink until you're full. To eat your fill means to eat until you are full. Okay, then, after he drinks, he realizes, oh no, now I'm stuck down here with the fox.

So they both began to consider, to think about how to get up again. And this is where the fox really cheats him. He says, I have a good idea. If you can help us both, right?

So this is, again, we're kind of learning, right? This is what these bad people do. He's liars. They use your goodness against you. So the goat's good.

The goat wants to help both. So this is what they do. This is a very good lesson in life. What do bad people do? They don't just... I mean, there are some evil people who just attack you, right?

And they're violent and they attack you. Yes, that happens. But a lot of these kind of cheaters, what they do is they use your goodness. They use your kindness against you.

So you must be very careful about being kind to other people, especially strangers. If you're kind to someone you know, then it's more safe. But with strangers, with people you don't know, you must be very careful about being kind to them because many of them will...

They see your kindness. They think it's weakness. And they'll use your kindness against you to cheat you. And that's what the fox does. So he says, okay.

He tells him, he says, put your feet against the wall, right? To kind of get high, higher up, to get higher. And then the fox will climb on top of him and then jump up and escape.

That's his idea. And he tells the goat, he lies to the goat. He said, after I get out, then I'll put my hand down and I'll help you get up also. And the goat, you know, the goat's very nice.

The goat's, well, that's what the goat would do. So the goat thinks, oh, well, he must be also kind. So he does it. He says the goat was happy to comply.

To comply means to, like, be obedient, to follow an idea, to follow orders, to follow instructions. It means it's to comply, to comply. The fox clambered. To clamber is kind of like to climb quickly.

To clamber. He clambered nimbly, means skillfully, gracefully, over the shoulders and horns, and he got out. He gets out of the tank. But then when he gets out, the fox does not turn around and help him.

He just starts to leave. And the goat complains, you broke our agreement. Does the fox help him? No, the fox just laughs. Ha ha, I cheated you. Ha ha, you're stupid.

He says, you have more hairs in your head than brains in your head. It means you don't have brains. You're stupid. And of course, he's not stupid. The goat's not stupid.

The goat's just too kind. He's too trusting. See, this is how these people, and there are whole groups of people like this, they use our trust against us. They use our goodness against us.

And that's what the foxes do in these stories many times. The other animals are maybe kind and good, and the fox cheats them using their kindness, using their trust. So a big message in Aesop is don't trust these strangers. People you don't know, you must be more careful about them.

Don't automatically trust people you don't know, even if they are talking very nicely and they seem kind. You must be a little suspicious. And it's good advice.

And then finally, so he laughs and he doesn't help him. He says, if you were smarter, you would have, before you went down, you would have thought ahead. You should have thought ahead. You made a plan how to get back out again.

And then the message from Aesop, the message of the story from, he says, a sensible man, a sensible man means an intelligent man, a rational man, never embarks on an enterprise. To embark means to leave or to begin, like to begin a trip, to begin a new project, to embark on. It's a phrasal verb, embark on.

An enterprise just means any project. It might be a trip, it might be a business, any action really, an enterprise, a project or action. Until he can see his way clear to the end, meaning you can see the end, you know how to finish it.

So, Aesop saying that the meaning of the story is don't start something that maybe is risky or dangerous until you think ahead. So that's the message of this story, the main message of the story. Think ahead before you start something.

Think ahead. Think about how will this end? What are the dangers? Like the goat. He should have thought ahead. He should not have automatically trusted the fox.

He should have thought, how will I get out? Before he jumped in. So look before you leap. Look ahead into the future before you do something dangerous or risky.

Think ahead is really the message of this. Think ahead. Alright, that's it. That is all. So again, just a quick review of some of the vocab. To tumble.

The fox tumbled into the tank. To tumble is to fall and roll. He kind of fell and he rolled into this deep water tank. To sing the praises of someone or something.

If you sing their praises, it means you compliment them. You say lots of good things about them. To urge. To urge is to kind of try to push someone verbally, you know, to try to persuade someone.

You urge them. Come on, do this. Do it, do it. To drink your fill means drink as much as you can. To clamber. To clamber is to kind of climb very quickly.

To clamber up, to clamber over something. Sensible means intelligent and wise, sensible, rational. To embark on means to begin something. Often we'll use this to embark on a trip.

To embark on a journey means to begin a trip, to begin a journey. And an enterprise. An enterprise is some kind of project or big action. All right, time for questions and comments.

If you have questions about the vocab, let me know. If you have comments or questions about the story, also let me know. We're live on YouTube. Let's see.

Christy says, you're such a good storyteller, the twins are lucky. Reading stories for children gives so many benefits. I speak from my own experience. Indeed, indeed, this is the beginnings of teaching your children learning at the young age is you begin by reading to them.

This will teach them to appreciate books and stories and it will, later, it will teach them to become good readers themselves. They'll they'll learn to enjoy books and as they get older as they learn to read then they will want to read you won't have to push them you know so you have to this is a great way you're giving an example so you read stories you know like this to your children and then you talk about the stories you can act the stories you can use fun voices you can do all of these things and they really will learn to love books and that's a good thing to teach your children and you can do this when they're quite young even as babies

Alex now says, thank you, AJ. I love you. You helped me so much. From Russia with Love, which is a nice James Bond movie, too, by the way. From Russia with Love.

I can't remember the song. Something like that. Umar says, sometimes people we know also cheat us. Yes, but if you're not stupid, if you're smart, if you know somebody is a cheat, if you know you can't trust someone, then don't let them cheat you many times, right?

Yeah, I had a friend like this. Yeah, it's still someone I see sometimes. But he would cheat everybody with things like money, like small things. And eventually everybody learned, can't really trust this guy.

He's always going to try to cheat money. If you go to dinner, he's going to pay less than he should. He's going to try to borrow money and not pay back. All this kind of stuff.

So then, one by one, his friends stopped trusting him. And one by one, now, none of his friends, they won't give him any money. They don't like to go to dinner with him. So it's his loss.

When you know people, you can see the pattern. So yes, they might cheat you sometimes, but don't be stupid. If after they cheat you once or twice, then don't let them do it again.

But with someone you don't know, it's more of a risk. Let us talk about another nice foxing story in Russia. A Russia story. Russian story. So there's a crow and a fox.

The crow is up on the tree. The black birds, right? And... The crow is eating cheese. He's got some nice cheese. He's eating it up on the tree. The fox came up.

He complimented the crow. He sang his praises. He said nice things to the crow. The crow yelled, yay, thank you, cheerfully. And when he yelled, the cheese fell on the ground, and then the fox ate it.

So again, we have these fox. In these stories, the foxes are usually very tricky. You can't trust them. They're always cheating other people or other animals.

Vladislav, with a good follow-up question, the foxes are evil or they're kind of cheaters in most tales and fables, but why? I think it's because, you know, foxes have a reputation for being very clever, for being sneaky and clever, right? Because, you know, foxes are kind of famous that they're hard to catch. So like if hunters are chasing them, dogs are chasing a fox, that the foxes can be very clever that they hide and they circle around and they do all these little tricks.

so that the dogs cannot catch them, or the hunters cannot catch them. So I think, you know, over many, many, many, many years, maybe hundreds of years, they start to get a reputation of being kind of clever, kind of smart and tricky, right?

And then, so then they make, that's, when these writers like Aesop make stories, then they kind of give the same personality to the fox. You see it also sometimes with rabbits, you know, like Bugs Bunny. Bugs Bunny has a kind of a similar personality in the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, right? He's always kind of tricking and cheating.

He's very clever, and he's always tricking and cheating the humans and the other animals, right? And he's kind of, you know, and he always enjoys doing that.

So sometimes you'll see this with rabbits in stories, but especially foxes, a lot with foxes. Yeah, like, you know, there's a balance in this, like Andrenia Romero says, Nowadays, it's hard to trust others, but we have to carefully, if we want to succeed in life. It's also true we can't do everything on our own by ourselves. That's exactly right.

We can't. So, you know, again, it's kind of a... Again, we say in English, trust is earned. Trust must be earned. You don't automatically give a lot of trust to somebody that you don't know.

Don't be afraid and paranoid all the time, but you're always a little careful. In the beginning. So they earn, you let other people earn your trust. So you trust them a little bit and see what happens.

Do they act in a good way? Do their actions follow their words? If yes, then you can now give them a little more trust. And then you continue to do things with them.

And again, maybe you have some tough situation. Well, do they behave? Do they act in a good way? When they have a chance to cheat you, do they cheat you, or are they still honest?

And if they're honest and good, now you know you can trust them more. They earned more trust. So it's a step-by-step process with new people. Now, hopefully in your own family, you know them for years and years, so you already know who you can trust and who you cannot.

Messy, why don't you write down the vocabs? Yes, you can write down the vocabs. Write it in the comments, guys. Think of it as practice. Tayaki says, how's the goat going to get out?

I feel sorry for him. We don't know. We never find out in this story. We have no idea. It's sad, right? This is the message he's sending us. It's a sad, sad situation.

He's warning us. And Aesop is warning us again and again and again. In many of these stories, you've got to be careful because, yeah, it's bad to be a victim.

He's telling us, on one hand, we want to be kind and good and trusting, but on the other hand, it's dangerous to do it too much because then you get cheated and, yeah, maybe the goat dies. We don't know. Maybe someone nice...

Another animal comes and helps him. We never find out. But it's kind of scary for the goat. So that's his message, you know. And of course, during Aesop's time, he lived in, you know, thousands of years ago, the world was probably more dangerous.

In general, more dangerous. And people had to be even more careful at that time. So it's kind of, you know, his stories are meant to teach you good lessons. And a lot of the stories are warnings to be careful and careful.

So, yeah, we don't want to be the GOAT. We want to be kind, but we don't want to be cheated. Lexi says, sometimes in life we have to take immediate decisions without doubting. If we'll stop and start to think, fear can absorb us.

Lots of things are trivia because of fear we do nothing. Absolutely, that's right. You're also right. Again, this is kind of the balancing side of look before you leap.

There's look before you leap, but then sometimes you have to make strong, strong, strong actions. And what's the, what decides, you know, it's the risk. A lot of it is the risk. How big is the risk?

And also, you know, when you don't need to trust someone you don't know, you can make faster and better decisions, right? Also, in life, hopefully, as you gain more experience, you'll get better at seeing the liars, you know.

There are a few people who are really, really good liars, but most people are not really, really good liars. And so you can start to see patterns that certain groups of people, certain kinds of people, certain kinds of behavior, you kind of know, I don't trust them. So again, like I've used travel as an example many times, my first time traveling in India. I got cheated constantly.

Constantly was cheated because I was like the goat. I was like the goat just automatically trusting everybody. And all these liars and cheaters were constantly focusing on me and others. And so I was constantly being cheated all the time, all the time.

Luckily, nothing dangerous. Just lost some money mostly and sometimes some time. But here's the good thing, because by the end of that trip, after two months of that, I became much more clever. I started to understand that certain kinds of people, I should not trust them automatically.

For example, anyone who would just, on the street, just come and start talking to me and acting really friendly... Well, in the beginning, I, oh, nice, they're just nice. But by the end of the trip, I realized that's not normal behavior for most people. And in fact, I should be very careful if someone does that.

And you should too. And now, of course, I've traveled many, many, many years. So automatically for me, that is suspicious behavior. Now, occasionally, they're just nice and they just want to talk and that's fine.

But... I will be careful for a while, little by little, trying to see what do they want, what do they really want. Now, in other areas of life where it's just my own decisions, like business decisions, for example, I will make very fast decisions, very fast.

So it kind of depends. And the more experience you get in some part of life, you will make faster and faster decisions. So you're right, we always have to balance these things.

Yeah, like Andreinha, Andreinha, I hope I'm pronouncing your name right, Portuguese, I think, right? I'm guessing Brazilian. Even when you meet people in a language exchange program, you can find suspicious potential partners. They end up being cheaters.

Yes, you can. That's right. Those language exchanges like italki. A lot of the people are just friendly, nice people, good people. They just want to practice language.

But you get some people who are not. You'll get guys on there who are looking for women, right? So they're always contacting girls and trying to... get something from them right they're looking for girls for sex for romance and that's not why people are there so you got to be careful with that and then others might try to cheat you and they might try to oh yeah be nice and then they start asking you for some money oh they say oh i've got some problem my my grandmother's sick oh can you help me can you send me some money you know that kind of stuff they're foxes so yes that's right

Yeah, so Riem Ming says, Hi, I'm from Cambodia. Nice country. I've been listening to you as part of my everyday activities. I listen to you while I'm cooking and washing my clothes.

Also, I shadow your accent. My wife thinks I'm crazy. Well, it's a good crazy. There's bad crazy and there's good crazy. Bad crazy are people who are homeless and they, you know, they cannot function in life.

Good crazy are people who are super enthusiastic... super energetic about good, positive things, so you're good crazy. And that's wonderful. That's exactly a great thing to do.

You can listen while you're doing other things. You guys know I love listening while I walk, and I recommend that. You can listen while you're cooking, while you're washing clothes, while you're in a car, while you're in a bus or a train, all these kind of things. While you're in line shopping, all these kinds of things you can get extra listening in.

It's a good idea. Yeah, like Omar Khalid says, we must be careful with foxes in our lives. That's exactly the message. That's right. Baha Janabi. Well, these stories help me understand native speakers.

Are these stories in formal, not slang? Well, no, these are idioms, which are naturally very casual. You're not going to find these idioms in academic textbooks usually.

It's actually an interesting mix, these stories. Now, this is a translation I have, right? I mean, the original is in Greek. But my translation, it's quite an interesting...

It's hard for me to say. Some of the vocab is a little formal, a little more advanced, you know, tumbled and enterprise and things like that. On the other hand, the idioms are very casual, very informal.

So, I think it's actually a nice mix. You're getting, you know, these good vocab words, which are a little more advanced. but you're also getting the very conversational, casual idioms. So I quite like it because you're getting actually both levels in these stories.

Yes, that's why we're doing these stories. It definitely will help you. Edimar Sahib asks, have you ever been to the Philippines? Only the airport, only Manila Airport.

I've never traveled in the Philippines. I would like to. It's not so far from Japan. I know there are many wonderful places just for vacations. My wife and I are interested in Cebu.

There's some good diving in Cebu, wonderful beaches. I know there are just lots and lots and lots of great places in the Philippines. The other nice thing I would say about the Philippines is while traveling the world, I have met many Filipinos.

For example, in Thailand, in Cambodia, in Hawaii. in america and uh overall i just find me that in general filipinos are very very friendly very kind of uh kind of very open right like they'll just start talking to you like i remember i was in hawaii we were in guam we were in guam and uh we're just at a at a bus stop and uh there was a woman and a man i think it was her father

And we're sitting there and she just, oh, hi, how are you? And just started talking and talking and so friendly and smiling. And she was Filipino. And so I find that seems like it's very common with Filipinos.

That very friendliness and openness. Shadia says, to be clever doesn't mean you're a cheater. No, that's right, but often cheaters are clever. Clever is kind of a type of intelligence, like the ability to think quickly and find kind of creative intelligence is what I think of clever.

So that could be used in a nice way too, but it can be used to cheat people. So often people who cheat are also clever. So that's a good point. Clever is a neutral word.

It's not, I wouldn't say positive or negative. It can be either. Emmanuel has a very good question. In your opinion, do we need to cast aside to get rid of some of our peers?

Peers are like your equals, coworkers, maybe some friends, people who are kind of your same social level. Because, unfortunately, I recently started off working. I guess, okay. And I noticed some of them are hypocrites.

They talk behind my back always. Yeah, get rid of those people. You can't trust them. So now you know, right? You have evidence that you cannot trust them.

They say bad things about you. You know they're saying bad things about you. So don't trust them. And certainly don't be their friends. You know, in life, you know, we use this word friends sometimes when we're

But we're not too generally, I think. In English, I know Spanish people use it even more generally. They'll call everybody, my friend, my friend, mi amigo, mi amigo. They just met you, right?

Amigo, amigo. And they just met you two minutes ago. But like a real friend is someone that you really can trust. You can rely on them. You have some, it requires time.

It requires earning trust, both sides, of course, both sides. They learn to trust you because in difficult times, you're there, you're with them, you're loyal to them, you're helping them.

And you learn to trust them for the same reasons. And for me, that's what a real friend is. I use the word friend now much more carefully. When I was young, like anybody I did something with, it was my friend.

My friends, my friends, my friends. You know, if I just hanging out, having a good time, I would say, oh, this is my friend. But honestly, later I realized some of them were not really friends because I could not actually trust them. They were not reliable.

And so this is something sometimes as you get older, you start to realize, you start to identify who are my real friends. And who are the people I just hang out with sometimes? It's fine. It's okay.

Everyone does not need to be your friend. It's fine to hang out with people and just enjoy having fun with them. That's fine. But just the level of trust is much less.

You know that probably you can't trust them with something important. Like Nasser says, trust is free but hard to get. Yes, must be earned. Yeah, McSat.

McSat provider says, foxes are like cats. They're smart. Maybe because of this, they constantly seem like bad boys. Yeah, right, right. Sometimes, you know.

There's a nice word in Japanese, ijiwaru. I think in English, the closest would be mischievous. Now, in this story, the fox is not only mischievous. The fox is actually quite a cheater.

He's very bad. He's kind of evil a bit in this story. More than a bit. He leaves the goat possibly to die. So the fox in this story is quite evil. But there's kind of a lesser level where you're just a little bad, a little naughty.

right like you'll see it with children a lot i would say in this in the cartoons bugs bunny he's like that he's not evil bugs bunny doesn't really he doesn't try to kill anybody in those cartoons right but he's just a little naughty he's kind of clever and naughty right and in uh english a good word for that is mischievous mischievous mischievous or mischievous you'll hear it pronounced both ways um So that kind of mischievousness sometimes is cute.

Sometimes it's kind of cute when it's like with children, for example. It's just that little bit of naughtiness, but not trying to hurt anybody. Kind of just trying to be a little tricky.

I have a nephew like that. He's definitely like that a lot. And it's funny. He's trying to be funny. He's trying to joke and be funny. He's not trying to hurt anybody.

Yeah, Fernanda, good to see you again. She says, I like this show with the fables. It's like a little book club. It is, right? It's like a little book club.

The book club, we're doing these big books and quite serious books. But I like this because it's just these little tiny stories. Each one's different. And like I'll show you on my page if you're watching on video.

I mean, some of them are so short. Look at that one. We'll get to this one later. It's number 54 in my book. But it's just one little paragraph. So some of them are very short.

The longest ones are just one page. The one we just did is one of the longest ones in my book. So there are these very short little stories with the animal characters. But what's great is each one has a lot of vocab in it.

Actually, we're probably getting, you know, four, five, six new vocab words in every story. We're getting idioms, one, two, three idioms or more in every story.

it's like there's this great little meaning and message and it's all very very short so you're right it's like a mini book club yeah right there's a saying is this from the Bible I think Christy

Maybe I'm wrong. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. This is good advice for good people. To be wise as a serpent. A serpent is a snake. So, wise as a serpent is the idea to be suspicious, to be careful, to be clever.

Look before you leap. Don't trust automatically. But on the other side, to balance that, be harmless as doves. A dove is like a white bird that's very peaceful.

So you don't try to hurt anybody, but don't trust too much. Be careful. So be careful, be smart, but also be kind. It's good advice. Ah, Andrenia, no problem, happy.

Oh, you're from a Spanish-speaking country. My real name is Andrea. I'm writing you from Colombia. Oh, okay. I thought the spelling of your first name looked Portuguese.

Well, Colombia. Great. Spanish. Yeah, like Hassam says, Hassam Ware says, real friends are like diamonds and precious stones. They are indeed. You will learn this as you go forward in life, that those really good friends that you can trust, that when you are really having a hard time in your life, you really need them, and they're still there to help you.

And you also help them, of course. It's both ways. But you'll find that they're rare. Most people only have, if they're lucky, a couple people like that.

Ah, nice. Azma with a success story. Azma Abbas. Want to thank you. I took the IELTS test recently. I got six out of nine in speaking, even though that was my first time speaking with a native speaker.

Whoa, you rock. Very nice. All because of your method. Thanks. Excellent. Congratulations to you. First time speaking to a native speaker. Amazing. Really great.

Really great. And Andrea says, I'd love for you to come to Colombia. Believe me, I want to do it. I would like to go to Colombia. I mean, honestly, I'd have to say I want to go to South America in general because I've never been there.

And I would like to, perhaps even starting up, you know, technically Central America, but like Costa Rica and Panama. And then I would love to go over to Colombia and if Venezuela ever. calms down and stabilizes, that'd be nice too. But if not, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay.

I mean, they're really... Honestly, you know, I'll have to be honest, like I... What's it called? Motorcycle Diaries. Maybe if you guys have ever seen the movie, it's based on Che Guevara's diaries.

I'm not a big fan of Che Guevara's, but the movie's very nice. because the movie's not really about communism or anything like that. The movie's just about his big motorcycle trip that he took when he was young, he and his friend. And they started in, I think it was Buenos Aires, down in Argentina, and they rode a motorcycle all the way up to, where did they go?

Was it Colombia? It might have been Colombia. So they went basically all the way up from kind of the bottom of South America, riding on a motorcycle on all these little roads, you know, up through, I can't remember exactly. I think they did go to Chile and Ecuador and some other places.

And I think they finished in. up in the north part of South America, at the top, I think it was Colombia. And it's a great story. I always get inspired by those kinds of stories.

So I kind of have this little dream in my mind of doing that now with my family, of doing this huge tour. So it would take many months, obviously. Some kind of big, grand tour of South America, visiting all these countries. It would be great.

It would be a good reason for me to Try to improve my Spanish again. Here's Omar from Venezuela. Great. Yeah, like McSat says, he or she is confirming what I said about

Another topic I've been talking about recently. I work at an internet provider. I constantly listen to you talking about the problems of technology nowadays. I agree with you.

It's dangerous that people are losing their sense of truth. Absolutely. And it's, again, this concentration of power because so much power now online.

It's controlled by a few bad companies. Google, Facebook, Twitter, Apple, Amazon. Those five are probably the giants. Too much power. Too much power and they're not.

Good. All right. All right. Yeah, like Nasser says, cheaters know how to make a good excuse for cheating. That's right. The good cheaters, you know, like I said, there are just evil people who are violent and dangerous.

We all know this, right? But I think more common, I think there are more people who are more like the foxes. And they're the ones, you know, there's again, wolves in sheep's clothing. There's another idiom, a wolf in sheep's clothing.

It comes from the story Little Red Riding Hood, you know, right? Little Red Riding Hood, she goes and she sees, she thinks it's her grandmother. And actually, no, I guess it doesn't come from that. I'm not sure what story it comes from.

But anyway, the idea is that the wolf will put on a costume to pretend to be a sheep. The wolf pretends to be a harmless animal and then attacks you, right? Or then cheats you. And it's kind of the same idea here, that people who are good, they're quite good to appear friendly.

They're smiling. A lot of cheaters in different cities around the world, they'll actually dress quite nice. Some of them will even wear a suit. So they'll have a suit and a tie.

So you think, oh, well, I must trust them. They look nice. They look like a business person. and then they cheat you, right? So they're quite clever, and some of them are very good at pretending to be harmless, so you have to be careful.

Roman Gotra asks, He says, thanks for your videos. How many times should I listen to one and the same mini story? One or two weeks. Thanks. One or two weeks is your decision.

I'd say more is better. I recently talked about this. Again, it's one of these things where we want to have a mix, a balance of, on one hand, very deep learning. I think it's important.

So you want to get that big repetition. The mini stories are good for that because you're getting the most common vocab, the most common grammar, And you're learning it very, very deeply with that repetition. And then you also, to keep your brain interested, you also want to do wide learning where you're just like listening to my podcast, listening to other podcasts, watching movies, reading books.

That's why we're doing the book club. It's why we're doing the movie club. It's why I'm doing these fables. I'm giving you the wide learning with all of this.

And so that combination of both is super powerful. Yeah, Elena says... Hey, Elena. I listened to your podcast about the Camino de Santiago, your dream to do it again. It sounds quite challenging to travel such a trip with two children.

It does indeed. I'd love to join you with my family with great pleasure. Yeah, come on. Um... It is challenging. Yes, as I just think about it, I'm not even really doing a lot of specific planning yet because it's probably a couple of years away.

But, you know, I know the Camino since I did it myself with my friend Joe. You know, so I know exactly what to expect from the Camino. And so when I imagine doing it with two small children, it.

It's a challenge, but it can be done. I know other people have done it. I've read some blogs of families that have walked the Camino. So I have a general idea how they do it.

They use strollers where they push the babies. And there are special ones you can buy that are good for trails. You can take them on little dirt paths and things like that.

But I know there are also some sections of the Camino in the mountains where that might not work. So there's still some things I have to figure out. And, of course, I have to figure out we're going to have to do shorter days because the babies, you know, they're going to get tired. They don't want to.

It's not like adults. An adult can walk 12 hours, you know. But a child to be carried or even pushed for 12 hours, they're going to get really bored in there. So you're going to have to break it up.

Have to do much shorter days. So it's going to take longer to do it. But it can be done and it will be done. I think overall it'll be a great experience for our family.

Chimvik says, AJ, why do you hate the U.S.? I don't hate the U.S. I was born in Russia. I still live here. As our government hates their people, we are not free.

Every government hates their people. You're not alone. You think the American government loves the American people? They hate the American people. They are the enemies of the American people.

The American media, the American government, And yeah, so it's the same in Russia. It's the same everywhere that I know. It's the same evil people at the top always.

And let's be honest, the governments are not at the top. It's the banks and the banking families are really at the top. They buy the politicians. They buy the governments and control them.

And they're evil. And that's why with this global system, we see that every country in the world has this problem. People sometimes criticize, why do Americans, why do you like war? Why are you attacking?

Well, we are not attacking. American people don't like that. American people don't want that. The American government does it, and they don't care what we think.

They ignore us. They do anything they want. American people, it's very clear, you know, there's all kinds of polls and opinion polls and you can just talk to Americans. They don't want any of that.

They don't want to invade any countries. In fact, you talk to most Americans, they don't even want our army in other countries. They want to bring them all home. America, this is what, you know, there's the phrase, America first.

It means we're sick. We don't want to be the police of the world. We don't. But... They don't listen to us because we don't have power. Democracy is a lie.

It's a big lie. So it's just like in Britain. It was a lie. They voted for Brexit and now they're not going to do it. They're totally ignoring the vote.

Democracy is a lie. They just use it as an excuse. They do anything they want. So, you know, Yeah, I'm sure it's the same in Russia. I don't know specifically about Russia, but I'm not surprised if it's the same in Russia and the same in every other country in the world.

Okay, so I don't hate America, but I hate the American government. And I hate the people above the American government, the globalists. I hate them. But I love America.

I love my country. Many wonderful things I love, especially about traditional America and about the old traditional American values and culture and history. I love, love, love very much.

Very much. What I hate is that those things are being attacked and destroyed. Yeah, Ian with a good point. Sometimes when we find naughty children that are clever, we laugh and we love them more because they're funny.

Do you think we might encourage them to be cheaters in the future? We have to be careful, yes. We must be careful about this, right? On one hand, they are very cute and funny when they do this, but we don't want to encourage it too much because...

Well, as you said, it can become something that's quite bad, right? A little bit that's kind of funny is cute, but if we encourage it too much by laughing and enjoying it, right, they might do even more and then do even more and then do even more, and then when they get older, you know, they might become more like the fox, and we don't want that, of course. So, yes, sometimes you have to be careful. Sometimes you have to pretend.

You know, as parents, you all know this. Sometimes you have to pretend. You have to fake your emotions, right? Like you're not really upset, you're not really angry, but you kind of have to pretend because they're doing something that really is not good.

It's cute. You actually, you want to laugh, but you can't laugh. You have to kind of pretend like, no, that's not good. Don't do that. And they're okay.

And then when they walk away and leave, then you laugh, right? And then you laugh and you talk to your wife or your husband and you laugh about it because it's actually funny, right?

So this is, all parents have to do this. Alright, I'm going to jump down to the bottom here. Jeff Gomez from Brazil says, first time I've been here. Welcome, Jeff.

Oh, Elena's asking more about the Camino. I'm always happy to talk about the Camino. Did you have a guide on the Camino trip? I had a guidebook. A guidebook in English.

I don't remember the title right now, but there are many in different languages. Uh... guidebooks for the Camino. A lot of people walked the Camino, so the guidebook had maps of the whole way, and then they had, like, you know, in each town, they would have a list of the places to stay, like hotels, guest houses, hostels, churches, and they would have phone numbers.

uh and also on the map so it's quite easy actually very good these guidebooks are quite good um it was very easy to find places to stay and places to eat no problem did you have a hotel room did you book a hotel room every night um so what we did in the beginning we did not we would just uh walk

We would arrive in the town in the evening and then we would just look around and ask, do you have rooms? Do you have rooms? Do you have rooms? And that was okay.

Probably about the middle of the trip, it started to get a little busier and Joe and I were staying in different rooms at that time. He was probably still a little more loose like that.

But I started to call ahead in the morning usually. So just one day ahead, I would call and make a reservation in the next town, you know, the final town.

Just because I got tired of, it just took time, you know. Like already, you're walking all day, you arrive in town, and then, you know, spend another 30 minutes trying to find a place to stay. Sometimes you go one place, they're full, then you have to go another. And I'm just tired.

I was like, oh, I'm tired of doing this. I'll just call ahead in the morning. Then I already have a reservation so I can just go straight to my guest house and take a shower and get some food. So I started calling ahead one day before.

Well, really the same day. I would call in the morning usually. Bolsonaro 2019. Hey, hey, I like Bolsonaro. He's funny. He's also funny. He's kind of a comedian.

Trump's funny, too. Dracula Yeh says, AJ, I'm very thankful to you because about 90% of my English is learned from you. Well, that's nice. Well, thank you.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Roman Preet says, I want to be fluent in English very soon for a school professional. To be a school professional, I guess, please help.

Well, you know, it's really just, you got to do a lot of hours every day. Lots of listening, lots of reading, and then eventually chatting with people.

So, you know, More hours per day. If you want to go faster, you have to do more hours per day. It's practically pretty simple. Not easy, but it's simple.

Oh, Ayo says, what do you think about Arabian Nights? See, those are also great stories, great traditional stories. There are many English translations of those stories there are lots of these kinds of stories these traditional stories you know some of them are fables that use animal characters like Vladislav said you know in Russian they have many of these stories most countries and cultures have something like this and others are more like fantasy and have human characters and you know there's the fairy tales the grim fairy tales are quite famous so yeah lots of good ones out there lots of good ones

And who knows, it's going to be a long time to finish this book, because today in my book, I'm just going in order. I'm just going one by one. So today we are story number seven, and this book of mine has over 200.

So we've got a long time to finish this book, but when we finally finish it, maybe I'll find some other traditional stories that are short. Short's the key thing, very short.

Sarah S. says, is it okay I feel bored while learning languages? No, not really. If you're bored, then you're going to learn more slowly. You're not going to be motivated.

So you're probably going to not work so hard. You're not going to do many hours. So yeah, is that a problem? It is a problem. Yeah, it is. So you've got to find a way to make it interesting.

You have to do it. How do you do that? Well, you do. I was just listening to Steve Kaufman's podcast. He was talking exactly about this exact topic. His number one most important thing about language learning.

So Steve Kaufman now speaks 20 languages. I'd say he's an expert. And it's interesting. So he kind of was talking about what are his secrets, you know, in his opinion.

What's the most important thing? The most important number one for learning languages, right? Like how has he learned 20 languages? What's the most important thing?

And what's interesting, he did not talk about methods. He did not talk about lessons. It was attitudes. Number one thing is to love it, to enjoy it. That was his number one point.

How did he learn 20 languages? You have to love what you're doing. Not just love the idea, but actually love the activities you're doing. So he said that one of his key points of advice is if you really hate doing something, like if you hate flashcards, don't do it.

Don't do it. Don't force yourself to do it. Because then you're just making the language learning painful and boring. So some people like flashcards. Okay, if you like it, do it.

Okay, great. But he said you've got to make it enjoyable. And I think that's excellent advice. And I have noticed the same thing with all the thousands of students who have succeeded with effortless English.

And especially the ones... who have had a very high level of success, who have become a high level of fluency, nice pronunciation, very, very good speakers.

They all have that same thing. They really enjoy it. It's not so much the exact method. It's their attitude. They love it. They really, really, really enjoy it.

They enjoy the mini stories. They enjoy the topics of the VIP lessons or Power English. They enjoy listening to podcasts and shows. They enjoy eventually watching movies.

They find books that they enjoy. You've got to figure out... the activities of language learning and the content, right, the specific books or audios or videos or lessons that you like, right? And some of it will be different for different people.

So I'll give you an example, like at a beginning level of language learning. I don't like it. I don't enjoy the beginning. I find it really boring, right?

So lots of people give different advice, like certain programs, certain lessons are good for beginners. Some people recommend Asimil. It's a French company.

Lots of these guys, lots of these people like Steve Kaufman that speak many languages. They love Asimil. I hate it. I tried it. I hate it. I find it so, so, so boring.

So I finally realized I was trying to force myself to use Asimil. And I finally said, this is crazy. I hate this. It's boring. There are many other things I can do.

I just stop using it. On the other hand, one that I really like for beginners is Pimsleur. I really like Pimsleur. And I don't know why I do, because other people hate Pimsleur.

There are others that criticize Pimsleur, not enough vocabulary, blah, blah, blah. But I love it. As a beginner, for me, Pimsleur is wonderful. I think I like it.

It's all ear training. There's no reading. Um... I really like it. I find it very stimulating. I also like it's just short enough. It's not too long where my brain gets tired, but it's challenging enough.

It kind of keeps my brain awake. So it's not the only thing I would say. Don't only do Pimsleur, but I quite like it at the beginner level. I quite like Pimsleur.

So I do it. That's what I do. And I don't do ACIML because I don't like it. So you have to find this for yourself because we're all a little different.

It's just like people ask me, what book should I read, AJ? Recommend a book. I can't, really, because I don't know what you like. Like I like nonfiction.

I like business books. But if you hate business, if I tell you read a business book, maybe you hate it. Maybe you're not interested. So for you, that's a bad choice.

Some people like romance. I don't like romance books. I don't like it at all. Don't like those kinds of books. Not interested. Boring for me. But maybe you love romance books.

So you should choose the kind of books you like. So Sarah, yes, you've got to find the things that you love and enjoy. If you love my podcast, listen to my podcast.

That's one thing I'm trying to do with my podcast is make it interesting. Talk about interesting topics. Make it interesting for you. That's why I don't just talk about grammar and language all the time because it's kind of boring after a while.

I wrote a whole book about that. I think most of you already have a good idea about what you need to do to learn English. So I don't want to talk about that topic constantly all the time because it gets really boring.

Right? It's much more interesting to talk about fitness and health and philosophy and spirituality and travel and all of these great things are far more interesting in English. Right? So the whole time, you're listening to English and improving your English, but the topics are hopefully interesting to a lot of you.

Right, now Vladislav mentions another one. Great software is Rosetta Stone as well. It uses words and phrases and pictures. Yes, some people like Rosetta Stone and some people don't.

Personally, I don't actually. I actually don't like Rosetta Stone. I tried it, but I didn't like it. But others like it. So there's not right or wrong.

Like Vladislav, it sounds like he likes Rosetta Stone. Some people really do. So great, try it. If you like it, use it. As I said, Pimsleur, a lot of people don't like Pimsleur.

But I do. I really like it. Like Moaz says, optimism is one quality more associated with success and happiness than any other. Indeed, that positive mindset is

is the starting point and the foundation. Okay, a couple more, and then we got to go. Andrea, how do I join your VIP program? EverestEnglishClub.com. Go to that website there, and you'll see a link to VIP.

Click that. You'll get all the information about the price, what do you get, everything. fabulousenglishclub.com Yeah, cool, see? Kim Vic says, as you might guess from my name, I'm a chemist.

My nickname. Every day I listen to your lessons while I'm doing experiments. See? Some people, some jobs, you can actually listen while you're at your work.

And I read Goosebumps in the subway. Goosebumps is a series of books for kids, like elementary school mostly. And they're kind of scary stories or thrillers, but not too scary because they're for kids, but about monsters and things like that, a little bit scary. It's a very good series of books if you like that kind of story.

Yeah, Rawaz says, I'm disappointed every time I try to build a new habit. I can't do it for a short time, then I quit very soon. Because of this, my family and friends are bored with me.

Okay, so I'm thinking this kind of connects to Sarah's question. Because... I found this in my own life. If I try to use willpower, just pure discipline only, then it is indeed very difficult to start a new habit.

The new activity, if you find a way to make it enjoyable so that you enjoy the process of doing it, you actually enjoy doing it, not just the goal later, but you enjoy doing it right now, it becomes quite easy.

Why? Because anything enjoyable, you naturally want to do more, right? So again, if you enjoy reading... You don't really need motivation because you want to read because you enjoy it.

If you enjoy physical exercise, and I do, I don't need motivation to exercise. I don't need motivation to go walking or jogging or rucking or something.

It's hard to stop me from doing it because it feels good. If I don't do it, I feel bad. So it's enjoyable for me. I like getting outdoors. I like moving my body.

I like looking around. I use it for time for thinking or studying or other things. I don't need motivation to do that because I love it. It's part of my life and I really enjoy it.

Now when I started doing the fasting, this is one of the big changes that happened for me. I mentioned yesterday that maybe 10 years ago I tried fasting and it was just painful. It took so much effort to do it.

I was just doing pure water fasting, plain water. and I was miserable, really, after a few days. And so it did not become a habit, because I did that, and with my willpower, I finished the fast. But then if I thought about doing another one soon, I'm like, oh, I don't want to do that again.

That was terrible. But now what Cole Robinson's snake diet program did is that it taught me a way to fast that would not feel so bad, that would be more feel-good

Be more enjoyable. Using the salt water. The salt water makes a big difference, guys. Really makes a big difference. So when I start drinking the salt, potassium water, then it's like, well, this isn't so bad.

And actually, I'm kind of feeling good. I feel kind of good. And then I look at the scale and I see, oh, and I'm dropping weight. I'm feeling good. Emotionally, I feel good.

My mind feels better. My energy is fine. And I'm losing weight. So then it became a very easy habit to start. So a lot of times if you're struggling with a new habit, you've got to find ways to make it more enjoyable right now.

Right now. Not in the future when you achieve the goal. What I like is eating donuts. I've got a problem. Okay. Mars Gims says, Hi from Korea. Not the north, by the way.

Yeah, I figured. I don't think they have internet yet. Free internet. I was struggling with speaking English. I came back to your videos. I found the piece.

It really relaxed me. Always inspiring. Thank you. Yep, exactly. Thank you. Twan says, this is very nice. Sometimes my cheeks hurt because of smiling too much when listening to your lessons.

That's very nice. That's sweet. Thanks. All right, guys, it's about time to go. We'll end with Merrick with a very nice comment as usual. Merrick says, Our meetings and conversations are interesting.

In my case, it's not even about learning or practicing a language, but about the valuable topics we are discussing here. Yes, amen, that's what it's about for me too.

And that really is my goal. That's been my goal with Effortless English from the very beginning, way back in 2006, was that I wanted all my students to be more focused on ideas and topics and to be so interested in the topics that so interested in the ideas that they actually just kind of would forget about English. They would forget they were listening to English because they would be so focused on the topics.

And when that happens, then the English learning and improvement feels like it's happening automatically. Feels like it's happening effortlessly. That's where the name comes from.

So thank you, Merrick, because that is indeed my purpose and goal as a teacher. All right, guys, that's all. Hope you enjoyed it. So again, Aesop's Fable, that was number seven.

And that was look before you leap. Think ahead before you take a dangerous action. And think ahead before you trust somebody you don't know. All right, as always, go to EffortlessEnglishClub.com.

Join my VIP program at EffortlessEnglishClub.com. Back with another show soon. Lots of love to you. Don't quit at EffortlessEnglishClub.com.