On the most recent episode of As The World Learns, the English, baby! soap opera, one of our long-time cast members, Marni, impersonates Donald Trump.

Normally, as co-writer and director of the show, I have to convince the actors up to this sort of thing. Not this time. This was all Marni’s idea. She knew the slacking character of Ella was going to have to change her ways soon, and she suggested that she could impersonate the billionaire star of The Apprentice to scare her straight. When she presented the idea, it seemed so thought out that I assumed she had dressed up as Trump before.

Turns out she hadn’t–it was just a crazy idea. So the day before the shoot we needed a wig to match Trump’s trademarked messed up short hair. I picked one up that would have worked, but in the mean time Marni made one out of a rug that was just so terrible that we had no choice but to use it.

Compare the two and watch the video!

Top Image: Everyone wanted a picture with fake Donald Trump, including the crew who only rarely ends up on camera. From left to right, sound engineer Shawn Willis, co-writer and director Alexis Nelson and Director of Photography Scott Ballard.

Carmelo Anthony’s nickname is Melo for obvious reasons. But it works on two levels because he’s famously mellow and easy going. You can see it when you watch him play in the NBA–he doesn’t ever seem to lose his cool and it enables him to do things like make game winning shots with four seconds left.

Sure enough, when we attended a recent Denver Nuggets to talk to Melo about Amazing, the upcoming movie he shot in China last summer, and to add him to our growing list of Celebrity English teachers, he lived up to the name. As I mention in the video, the guy has a lot going on, but seemed really calm and focused stretching and running defensive sets and then laid-back and focused on us when we started talking to him for this English lesson on the slang phrase, “mellow out”.

It’s really interesting to hear that Carmelo doesn’t like his Chinese nickname, Tian Gua (甜瓜), which means “sweet melon.” One commenter on the lesson explains that it came from “his sweet smile, lovely babyface and polite behaviors.” All good ways of gaining fans in China, but not necessarily intimidating to opponents, I guess.

Our friend Cool Nutz did us a big favor and recommended to his friend E-40 that he do an English lesson with us. E-40 is a very well-known rapper from Oakland, California. He is actually the first artist to be the subject of a regular Ebaby! lesson made of a conversation between our actors and later to personally appear in an interview. We met with him when he played at the theater just down the street from the English, baby! offices in Portland earlier this month.

Maybe it’s his clothes, or maybe it’s the way he walks and talks, but any room instantly gets cooler as soon as E-40 walks into it. Before we met with him, he was signing autographs for a large group of fans. You could feel their excitement over meeting him.

E-40 is a natural fit for a Celebrity English Lesson because he uses a lot of interesting slang in his music. In fact, he used a lot of slang in our interview with him. We tried to include a lot of the simpler phrases and terms he used in the editing of this video so that English students with an intermediate level could understand it. I think it came out well. It’s interesting having a celebrity do an English lesson about time and work–subjects you would actually see in an ESL text book!

When I was preparing for this interview, I learned that E-40 invents a of slang phrases. You know the phrase, “What it do?” Apparently that’s his. I asked him what his latest slang creation was. It didn’t make the final cut of the lesson, but here’s E-40 explaining “for the energy.” You should be hearing this one on a daily basis in a year or two.

Finally, I love how E-40 threw up the metal sign for this photo. We didn’t even talk about metal, but somehow he must have known I am a metalhead. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Tech N9ne was running around looking like a member of Gwar that day.

Visit E-40 online.

When we got on Tech N9ne’s tour bus, there were a few guys sitting inside. I didn’t recognize them, so I asked where I might find Tech.

“I’m the one you want to talk to,” said a voice from a scary mask. At first I was a little skeptical, but he proved who he was by showing us the tattoos on his arms. Once we started talking to him, the mask kind of made sense. We were there to help the English-language students who use English, baby! learn the slang idiom “far out,” and well, that mask was pretty far out. You can see the whole English lesson on Ebaby! or watch the video here:

It was cool that Tech rapped a little during the interview. It’s clear he’s a really smart guy. He makes a good English teacher.

After the interview, Tech showed us around his bus. In the back, he had a full bedroom with a king-sized bed and a granite shower. He bought the bus from Kid Rock.

I attended Tech N9ne’s sold out show that night and was really impressed. I didn’t expect to stay the whole time, but the hour and a half passed quickly because the crowd was so energetic. You can see what I’m talking about in the video. We interviewed another rapper that night as well, so watch the Celebrity English Lesson page and you’ll find out who it is soon!

Visit Tech N9ne’s official website.

The Phoenix Suns were here in Portland to play against the Trailblazers in the first round of the NBA Playoffs. I had approached some of them about doing celebrity English lessons for English, baby!, but hadn’t heard back. I figured they were probably too busy staying focused.

But then one of my friends posted on facebook that the Suns were hanging out at Grand Central Bowl. This was very exciting news because it’s just across the river from our office and we know it’s OK to film there–we shot some scenes for the beginning and end of our Winter Olympic videos there.

Everyone was gone for the day from the office, so I sent a taxi for Devan at her house. Normally she just acts in our lessons, but she was the only person available to hold the camera! On the way over to Grand Central, I made a plan to have Channing Frye introduce me to Steve Nash so I could interview him. I came up with some questions.

The facebook post made it seem like the whole team was at the bowling alley. I pictured them bowling against each other in small teams. But when we arrived, we found there were only a few players, Amar’e Stoudemire, Jason Richardson, and Jared Dudley watching the NBA Playoffs on TV.

Quickly, I had to come up with new questions for each. After gathering some courage, I walked up to Amar’e, explained who I was, and asked if he’d like to do an interview. He was nice as he declined, saying, “Nah, I’m good.” Jared overheard me explaining to Amar’e that English, baby! gets a lot of traffic in China.

“How much traffic do you have in China?” Jared asked.

I told him and gave him my card.

“I’ll hit you up sometime,” he said.

“Oh come on, let’s do an interview right now.” I replied.

He agreed. But as we began to set up, I realized that in my hurry to get to the bowling alley to catch the Suns, I forgot to put a tape in the camera! Jared said he was going to hang out and watch the rest of the game (Milwaukee was playing Atlanta). So we ran back to the office and came back. He was still there, and still happy to be interviewed, thank goodness! What a good guy. And what a good interview too. He’s a natural on camera. No wonder he makes daily videos and posts them to his twitter account. He even let Devan get a picture with him, which you see above. Without further ado, the interview video. You can see the whole lesson here.

As part of our ongoing celebrity English lesson series, I recently got to interview Marcin Gortat of the Orlando Magic. He is the first Polish born player in the NBA and nicknamed “the Polish Hammer.” Actually, I’ve heard that he prefers “the Polish Machine,” but I just think the hammer is so much more unique and fitting. I hope he changes his mind.

Normally, I go into these interviews knowing what the lesson will be about. But in this case, I tried something different and asked Marcin to pick his favorite basketball slang on the spot just before we started shooting. He chose “beat a shot.” Watch it below or see the full lesson here. Or you can even read about it in Polish on Marcin’s official website.

That night after the interview, I went to the game and watched Marcin and the Magic fall to my Portland Trailblazers. Marcin had a great game though, and every time he dunked or blocked a shot I stood up and yelled “bring down the hammer!” Then I went back to cheering for the Blazers. I must have confused a lot people around me.

Olympic gold medalists Zhao Hongbo and Shen Xue on English, baby!

Just when we thought interviewing the Chinese snowboarding team was as good as it could get for us during our visit to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to help our members learn English, we got an incredible opportunity. A few days after winning the gold medal in pairs figure skating, Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo met with English, baby! outside the skating practice facility in Vancouver.

This couple is one of the best stories of the Olympics. After skating together for more than 17 years, Zhao Hongbo proposed to Shen Xue on the ice in 2007. This year, the pair came out of retirement to try for Olympic gold, the only championship they had not yet claimed, and in Vancouver, their dreams came true.

Our dreams came true when Honbgo agreed to lift Xue for us in this lesson on the term “lift.”

After we got to know each other a bit, we asked Hongbo and Xue to do another lesson on the phrase “head over heels.” You can really see how warm these athletes are in this rare look at their personal side. This video was an immediate hit in China. It got more than 50,000 views in the first weekend on this Chinese video site without us promoting it at all!

As far as we know, this was the only English interview Zhao Hongbo and Shen Xue gave while in Canada. We are so honored to have been able to participate in a little bit of their gold medal moment.

申雪和赵宏博是人人稱羨的情侶，赵宏博在東京世錦賽比賽結束後向申雪的求婚，是個大家都知道的浪漫故事。訪問前可以看見申雪用手幫赵宏博梳理頭髮， 夫妻關懷之情自然流露。

先問他們怎麼學英文的，赵宏博先說 “在學校學的“，然後一時語塞，申雪馬上替赵宏博接口用英文說 “但是不夠“ 。他們的感情也在他們時時甜蜜微笑相擁時展露。

因為希望可以請申雪和赵宏博教大家什麼是 “Head over Heels”，我們也問了他們何時知道他們深陷爱河的，申雪和赵宏博異口同聲的說“2007年”。再問是突然有一刻感受到他們深陷愛河呢，還是慢慢體會到的，申雪回答，他们在一起多年了，愛情是慢慢产生的。

这是他们身为一对已婚夫后首次参加奥运，还获得了奥运金牌。赵宏博說 “我们知道，即使我们没有拿到冠军，我们也会开开心心的体验这次奥运会”。
赵宏博解释说，夺得金牌并不比与妻子一起比最后一次比赛重要。很明显的，他们互相深爱。English, baby! 覺得申雪和赵宏博把 “Head over Heels”教的很好。

English, baby! 的网站访客来自世界各国。我们经常访问名人、运动员、和演艺人员，并请他们教英文，帮助世界各地的人学习英语。这次我们很高兴有机会访问中国冬奥会金牌赢家赵宏博和申雪。我们知道他们在中国及世界滑冰界里大有名气，他们能够在十五年的专业运动生涯结束前拿到冬奥金牌，划下完美句点，全世界都为之感动。

在访问中，赵宏博、申雪展现了他们优秀的英文能力及绝佳的亲和力，问到他们知不知道什么是一个“Lift”，赵宏博轻松回答并表示是他们滑冰节目里三项之一。申雪的话比较少，但是可以看出她和赵宏博之间深深的默契，当问他们可不可以亲身示范一下什么是 “Lift“，申雪将双手交给赵宏博，我们眼前的下一幕就是赵宏博轻而易举的将申雪举在半空中！看过这英文视频后，我们相信English, baby!各国的会员都学会了一个新英文单字！在这里看赵宏博和申雪示范 “Lift”!