Gregg Gillis, who makes music under the name Girl Talk, is a really smart guy. His music alone gives that away–it can’t be easy to mix parts of more than 300 songs into one very danceable album. Before Girl Talk became his job, he was an engineer, and you can hear how scientifically he speaks in these English lesson videos we recorded with him during his tour stop in Portland.

First, we talked about the phrase “out of the blue” and how his latest album, All Day, surprised everyone.

Then, we talked about the term “sample.”

It was so nice of Gregg to spend 15 minutes or so with us both in his dressing room and up on the stage. He really seemed to get the concept of our Celebrity English Lessons and said he had watched the one with Bone Thugs-n-Harmony and liked it.

Interestingly, before this interview with Gregg took place, we had been planning to run a music English lesson about Girl Talk anyway. We recorded a conversation about him for the dialog. You can listen to me and Ella from the Ebaby! cast chatting about All Day below. And don’t forget, you can always download the album for free!

Danny Granger is the latest NBA All-Star to help English, baby! share basketball slang with English learners all over the world. We met with him after an Indiana Pacers practice. Since the team played a couple of preseason games in China, I asked him about that and he said the fans were rowdy. I grew up in New Mexico where Danny went to college for 2 years and I saw him play there. The arena at the University of New Mexico is called the Pit and gets very loud. So if he says basketball games in China are rowdy, he is not joking around.

I also enjoyed watching Danny play in the World Championships last summer. It’s always interesting to see someone who is usually the star of his team play a more supporting role. That’s why the topic of Danny’s lesson is the difference between being a “role player” and a “franchise player.”

As he explains, a role player on a basketball team is someone who comes into the game for a limited period of time to do a specific thing such as block shots or play defense. But there’s another kind of role playing I thought Danny might be into. You see, Danny loves superheroes and he has built a Batcave into his house. What is a Batcave? Well, it’s where Batman hangs out and hides his cars. I can’t find a picture of Danny’s Batcave, but here is a good drawing of Batman’s by Paul Rivoche and you can see some quotes from Danny describing it on Ball Don’t Lie.

Image of Grangerman via Weekly World News.

President Barack Obama recently spoke at Intel in Hillsboro, Oregon, very close to the English, baby! headquarters in Portland. We were fortunate enough to obtain a media pass for the event so we could share the President’s words with our international readers and help them learn some English along the way.

While watching the speech, I took notes about what might make a good English lesson. Some interesting phrases and terms he used were “gadget,” “lag behind” and “paid off,” but we decided on “hustle” for the lesson.

The message of the speech was about how important education is in the global competition of the technology business. You can see in the comments on the lesson that this message actually meant a lot to our audience of international students. While they may not be engineers, they all have something to hustle for too.

Neither our cameraman Scott, nor I had seen Obama in person before, so it was quite a thrill. Scott had to arrive very early to set up our gear and all of the media had clear security and be in the room long before the President. After waiting for a couple of hours, it was sort of a shock when Obama walked out on to the stage just 50 or so feet away. He started the speech with some jokes too!

Waiting was actually kind of fun though because we got to hang out with all the other media there. Everyone from our local newspaper, to major television networks like CBS were there. It was interesting to watch all of these outlets in action. As you can see, we were working right next to them in the media area.


We had our own little station, right behind the spot reserved for CNBC.

I was glad they let me keep the press pass as a souvenir, especially considering it is “PROPERTY OF U.S. GOVERNMENT”!

Our most recent English lesson with an NBA player is Channing Frye teaching the term “breakthrough.” I watched Channing play for the last few years when he was a Portland Trailblazer. And like most people in Portland, I liked him a lot. He fit the city really well–he did public service announcements for green issues and blogged about how much he liked the restaurants. Channing met his wife in Portland and has kept his apartment here after moving to the Phoenix Suns this season.

I remember when I first heard that Channing Frye had hit three threes in one game. I thought, “Good for him!” But then I heard the same thing about the next game. And the one after that. It appeared Channing had had a breakthrough!

Although he didn’t see much playing time during his tenure with Portland, when Frye and Suns came to Portland to play the Trailblazers last month, Channing had become a starter. Blazer fans usually boo when the visiting team’s starting lineup is announced, but when Channing’s name was called everyone cheered. He went on to make 5 three-pointers that night! Maybe doing this interview earlier in the day helped him get ready.

There is a 44% chance this shot went in. That’s more than 10% better than ever before in Channing’s professional career!

Channing on his balcony in Portland.