The English, baby! ESL soap opera recently finished airing its second set of 10 episodes. Each is focused on a specific idiom or American slang phrase and packed with related vocabulary, grammar and laughs. Lots of laughs.
Though, this season was a little darker. After Jason and Devan got engaged last season, things start to get a little heavy. Literally, in Dale’s case. Watch all 10 videos here and see the guide below for links to the full lessons.
2.01 – Get Hitched: Devan and Jason announce to their friends that they are getting married.
2.02 – Let Oneself Go: Dale’s co-workers start to notice that he isn’t taking care of himself.
2.03 – Two Cents: Devan’s friends all have ideas about her wedding.
2.04 – Odd Man Out: All of Jason’s friends want to be groomsmen at the wedding.
2.05 – Over The Top: Marni takes Devan shopping for a wedding dress and simplicity rules.
2.06 – Bridezilla: Devan goes crazy as she and Jason register for wedding gifts.
2.07 – Cold Feet: Jason visits Mason at the dumpster for advice and ends up with socks.
2.08 – The Breaking Point: Jason reaches his limit for wedding planning.
2.09 – Hurt Someone’s Feelings: Jeff confronts Dale about his weight and feelings get hurt.
2.10 – Call Something Off: Jason wants to call off the wedding. Devan cancels their relationship.
Every now and then, we hear stories of people who met on English, baby! visiting one another in real life. We believe that a social environment helps people learn English. So when our members form bonds strong enough to make international trips to see each other, we think that is a really cool thing.
Recently, some Ebaby! members I got to meet a few years ago had another international guest. Zeus from Turkey and Kinski from Ukraine met on English, baby! and got married a few years ago. I went to their wedding and made a video about it. It was an incredible good time.
Another one of Zeus’ Ebaby! friends, Rita, traveled from Brazil with a friend to visit Zeus and Kinski in Istanbul last fall. They are amazing hosts, so I’m sure a fantastic time was had by all. Zues describes meeting his online friend of 6 years at the airport:
“You can not imagine at that moment, feelings were maximum. We hugged and get happy to see eachother. Than we went to their hotel. We showed them Istanbul’s beauties and they loved much Istanbul.”
From the look of it, Istanbul loved them back, too.
They also visited some of the sites I saw on my trip. I know I was right here:
And here:
I wish I had visited this place. Looks cool! Guess I’ll have to go back.
Have you met your Ebaby! friends in real life? Tell us about it!
Our recent English lesson videos with US Women’s National Team star Ali Krieger have introduced us to the previously unknown world of fan-created animated gifs. Between Ali tweeting the lessons and the official US Soccer blog posting them, a lot of fans saw them, and a few were inspired to create these fun images.
Apparently, there are dozens of these gifs created by fans of the US Women’s National Team every day. We think it’s pretty amusing, and we’re glad they like our videos.
We recently got a taste of World Cup action just up the street from the English, baby! office in Portland. The US Women’s National Team took on the Canadians, and two of the athletes were happy to teach some new vocabulary to our members around the world.
Canadian goalkeeper Karina LeBlanc talked about the number one term every goalie must know, “save”. She was tons of fun. We grabbed her right after she said hello to ESPN broadcaster and women’s soccer legend Julie Foudy (pictured above).
There were a few hundred fans there to watch the teams practice. Just before signing some autographs, US defender Ali Krieger gave us an interview. Since she’s such a smart player and a leader, we had her teach the more abstract term “distribution.” She also happened to use the phrase “sink or swim,” so we turned that into a second video.
We also recently featured a pair of lessons by the only Japanese player in MLS, Kosuke Kimura. He talks about last year’s MLS Cup in which his Colorado Rapids pulled off a come from behind victory, and he demonstrates how to “cut the angle” in a hotel lobby. This easy going attitude has made Kosuke a fan favorite, so it’s no surprise that these videos were covered by soccer blogs including Soccer 365 and Burgundy Wave.
After 165 nonstop episodes, it seemed time to start producing the English, baby! soap opera, As the World Learns, in seasons. Watch all 10 episodes of the romantic first season right here. Each episode is an English lesson focused on a particular phrase. See the episode guide below for links to the full lessons.
1.01 – Left Out: Get to know the Ebaby! cast while the men of the office get left out.
1.02 – Glass Ceiling: The women of the office have a plan to break the glass ceiling.
1.03 – Girls’ Night Out: On a girls’ night out, the women make a discovery.
1.04 – Plant the Seed: Devan starts planting the seed to get what she wants.
1.05 – Pop the Question: Mason catches Jason practicing to pop the question.
1.06 – Break the Bank: Jason asks Jeff how to get a ring that won’t break the bank.
1.07 – Have Second Thoughts: Trouble at the office gives Jason second thoughts.
1.08 – Spill the Beans: Mason spills the beans about Jason’s plan.
1.09 – Chicken Out: Jason has a plan, but will he chicken out?
1.10 – It Just Slipped Out: Jason let’s something very important just slip out.
Season 2 starts in November. Don’t miss the wedding planning drama! Thanks for supporting coolest English lessons anywhere. Tell your friends!
With our Celebrity English Lesson series, the philosophy is, you might as well learn from the best. While we’ve had guest teachers from all sorts of sports and entertainment fields, it’s rare that we get someone who is actually the very best at what they do (gold medalists Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo and Girl Talk come to mind). So we’re thrilled to have defending LPGA Champion and number female 1 golfer in the world, Taiwanese superstar Yani Tseng.
Yani shares some basic golf terms and talks about learning English. At 22, she’s the youngest golfer ever to win 5 majors, so the fact that she acquired excellent English skills along the way is no small accomplishment!
We spoke with Yani at the LPGA Safeway Classic in North Plains, Oregon. Our friend John Canzano even mentioned us in his coverage of the event for The Oregonian. It was the Pro-Am day, and a couple of other well-known players were available to help us teach English as well. Korean star IK Kim was practicing on the putting green when we found her and chatted about the phrase “hole in one”.
Beatriz Recari was actually checking out some sunglasses from a vendor on the fairway (Spaniards love them some shades), but was happy to share her favorite golf term, “stinger”, with us and talk about her mission to learn exotic languages.
After we talked to Beatriz, she headed off to lunch. Food came up in our interview with Yani as well, so we put together this bonus clip just for the blog.
The LPGA Tour is heading to Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia and Mexico this fall, as well as other places. Say hi for us if you see any of these athletes!
Dime Magazine, a New York-based basketball magazine that publishes in the US and China, features a full-page story on our basketball English lessons starring NBA players in its September edition. They let me pick the best quotes from the videos for the story. Click on the image to read it and download the whole issue here.
Finally, Lindsay Pulsipher, an actress from one of my favorite TV shows, True Blood, recently appeared on Ebaby! and the Truebies took notice on sites such as True-Blood.net and TrueBlood-Online.com. The interview even made the local “Stardar Report” of Byron Beck. It’s nice to be popular.
The Los Angeles Galaxy is a team of stars. They have David Beckham, the most famous player in the world. They have Landon Donovan, the best active American player. Plus they have a former MLS rookie of the year, goal keeper of the year, and many other well-known players.
So it was no surprise that there was lots of media hoping to talk to Galaxy players when they came to Portland to play the Timbers yesterday. Since we weren’t able to talk to him one-on-one, we were thrilled that David Beckham used the term “buzz” in his press conference. Perfect for a celebrity English lesson!
In fact, there was quite a buzz around town yesterday. It seemed like every other update on facebook was about Beckham or the match. People started lining up outside the stadium early in the day. You can read more about the woman with the sign in the video in this column by John Canzano.
When the Galaxy were getting off the bus to go into the arena, Donovan and Beckham got the biggest cheers, but next was Bryan Jordan, or BJ as he’s known. He was on loan to the Timbers a couple of seasons ago and is still a fan favorite here. We grabbed a few seconds alone with him to help our members learn the phrase “man on“.
Ultimately, the Timbers won 3-0. You can watch highlights of the game here.
Aurelien Collin is one of those people you meet and instantly wish was your good friend. He is so fun and energetic and you don’t even have to talk to him to see it–you can tell by the way he plays.
Even at training, Collin is a physical player, making plays for the ball, shouting and waving his arms. When he’s on the pitch representing Sporting Kansas City, he’s an animal–no one can miss this French star.
Naturally, we asked him to teach some fairly active terms when he agreed to be our latest celebrity English teacher. We started off with challenge because I had heard that Collin only had a couple of weeks to get ready for the season after joining his new team in KC. That sounded like a challenge to me. Of course, Collin said it wasn’t a challenge at all, but we talked about other types of challenges.
Watching Collin speak English is kind of like watching him stop a striker. He has to get creative and he tackles the problem with confidence. MLS and Sporting KC are lucky to have this guy and so are we!
This Sunday, the fourth season of True Blood on HBO begins. This show has a lot of fans in the US and around the world, and it also has its own set of vocabulary that its international fans might have some trouble with.
Fortunately, one of the actresses from the show, Lindsay Pulsipher, who plays Crystal starting in season 3, is our latest celebrity English teacher. At a recent showing of her new film, The Oregonian, we asked her to talk about the term “shapeshifter” and, since her character likes to turn into a panther, the phrase “cat got your tongue” in an English lesson.
Lindsay was so kind and very happy to help us teach English. We’re excited to see her in True Blood this season and hopefully in more movies in the future. You can see a trailer for The Oregonian here, and a scene from True Blood with Lindsay in it here. Both are a little too intense to embed on an English education blog, but if you like supernatural and scary stuff, you will probably enjoy them!
The English, baby! ESL soap opera recently finished airing its second set of 10 episodes. Each is focused on a specific idiom or American slang phrase and packed with related vocabulary, grammar and laughs. Lots of laughs. 
