Show 477 Thursday 23 August

Watch today's show at YouTube or BlipTV.


Hi, I’m Sarah. Welcome to The Daily English Show.

The video we’re going to study today is called Discernment.
So go and watch the video first and then come back and listen to my explanation.

The guy making this video is called Tom. And the point of this video is that in one of his previous videos – or maybe in some of them - he played two different characters. Or maybe he played himself, but two different versions of himself. And some people were confused by that. So in this video he is doing it again, he’s talking to himself and talking about finding a way to help viewers not be confused by having one person play two parts.

A key word in this video is discern.
Discern is a formal verb which means to know recognize or understand something especially something that is not obvious.

He says: We do need to figure out a way to discern between us.
Which means: We need to think of something to do so that people can tell the difference between the two of us.

Hoodie means a hooded sweatshirt. Like this.
Post-prod I guess is short for post-production. I’ve never heard that before, so I don’t know if it is common or just a word that he uses.
Murky means not clear. Water can be described as murky.

I think this video is good to study because it is like a conversation, so it’s good for practicing conversational English and also because it’s easy to understand what he means because he’s acting it out.
He’s also talking quite fast – so that’s excellent listening practice. And I’ve written out the script so you can listen and read along again and again.

So anyway, in the video, Tom has many suggestions about what they – or he - could do ... and the final suggestion is obviously what he decided to do in the first place which was have no special effects and let the viewers work out which is which.

And the final punchline is that originally the viewers were getting confused, but now he is getting confused – well one of him is getting confused.

When he says: Do you reckon you can handle the challenge? He actually talking to the audience, but his other self thinks he is talking to him.

STICK NEWS

Kia Ora, in Stick News today, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit, Vancouver is the world’s most liveable city.

The Economist Intelligence Unit is a research and advisory company providing country, industry and management analysis.
Every year, they publish a list of what they call “the world’s most liveable cities”.
Each city in the list is given a liveability index from zero to one hundred percent.
Zero percent means “exceptional quality of life” and 100% means “intolerable”.
In the latest list Vancouver scored 1.3, making it the most livable city in the world. It is the fifth time it has been ranked number one.
According to theglobeandmail.com Vancouver is number one due to a low crime rate, little threat from instability or terrorism and a highly developed transport and communications infrastructure.
Another Canadian city Toronto, came in at number five.
And Australia seems like it’s not a bad place to live either.
The capital city of Algeria in North Africa was ranked the least liveable city. It was given a liveablity index of 64.7%.

And that was Stick News for Thursday the 23rd of August.
Kia Ora.

conversations with sarah
#294 Where’s Tom from?

Step 1: Repeat Josh’s lines.
Step 2: Read Josh’s lines and talk to Sarah.

Josh Where’s Tom from?

Sarah Australia.

Josh How did you know that? Could you tell by his accent?

Sarah No, I looked at his profile. But, yeah, actually I could tell by his accent too.

Josh Is it different than your accent?

Sarah Yeah, it’s different.

Josh I can’t tell the difference.

Sarah Yeah, most people outside of New Zealand and Australia can’t tell the difference.

Josh What is the difference?

Sarah Um. I made a video about it once. Watch that.

Discernment

Tom, we gotta talk.
Yeah? What’s up?
Last video was too confusing, people can’t tell the difference between us.
Isn’t it pretty obvious by our personalities?
No, it’s not obvious, I don’t even know which one’s me right now.
Oh, that’s easy, now, you’re you.
OK, but we do need to figure out a way to discern between us.
I could wear glasses.
Don’t be ridiculous, you don’t need glasses.
I could wear a hoodie.
What if I get cold?
I could do my hair.
Oh, no, that’s creepy.
I could get right up close.
Mmmm.
I could go far away.
Mmmm.
I could be naked.
You’re still wearing pants.
I could be naked.
Ahh!
I could be played by Bob.
That misses the point entirely.
I could have low saturation.
That looks murky.
Really high contrast?
That looks awful.
I could have a sound effect.
Way too annoying.
I ...
Nobody would understand you.
(I could use subtitles.)
No, too much post-prod work.
We could remain indistinguishable and hope that our viewers can figure it out on their own.
Mmm the least effort of all. That idea’s got merit. What do you reckon? Do you think you can handle the challenge.
What? I don’t have to handle anything. I’m one of you guys.
Do I meant you like, the ...
(Me?)
N ...
What?

links

today's news:
theglobeandmail.com
theeconomist.com

The Economist Intelligence Unit (Wikipedia)

today's STICK NEWS pictures

TDES videos about NZ/Australian accents:
List of words to tell the difference between NZ and Australian accent.
Reading a few lines in a NZ accent for Ozpace.
How New Zealanders say milk.
I try an Australian accent.
I read cutiemish’s list in my NZ accent.

music

show start, cws start, qa start
artist: Matthew Tyas
album: Music for the movies vol1
tracks: Superheros, Intellectuel, Three ways to run away
from: Oloron Sainte-Marie, France
album at Jamendo
artist at Jamendo
artist site

cws bgm
artist: San Sebastian
track: mellow
artist site

Did you notice a mistake in this script? Please leave us a comment and tell us! We really appreciate people pointing out our mistakes.Thank you.

Have you have translated this script - or part of it - into your language for English practice and published it on your blog? Please leave a comment and a link so other people can read your translation. Thank you.