Today we have a guest blogger, Warren Ediger. You can read his explanation of 2009 buzzwords in the next post.  (What’s a buzzword, you ask?  Read Warren’s post to find out!) Warren will be writing posts every now and then (sometimes) about American culture and English, and we are very happy to have him writing for us.  He is an experienced ESL teacher here in Southern California, as well as one of the top (best) online English tutors I know.

Be sure to take a look at Warren’s website, SuccessfulEnglish.com, which has some excellent resources and tips for improving your English.  Those interested in online tutoring can contact Warren via (using, by means of) email by going to his website.

Let’s give Warren a warm (friendly) welcome to the blog!

~Jeff

We have often said that we both have faces for radio. Here is further proof (evidence) of this.

For our German-speaking listeners, there was a radio story about ESL Podcast on Deutschlandfunk.  You can listen to the story here.

Look for the story “Englisch per Podcast: Sprachenlernen mit Humor.”

~ Jeff & Lucy

P.S. See the comments below for a translation from Rolf, one of our German-speaking listeners.  Thank you, Rolf!

In English Cafe 150, I talked about a group of Americans called the Amish. They are a group of Christians who have very traditional values and don’t have a lot of modern technology in the places where they live. They speak a language called Pennsylvania Dutch, but they also learn English in school.

In the podcast, I said that Pennsylvania Dutch is related to a language spoken in the Netherlands, but this was incorrect. Pennsylvania Dutch is actually related to German.

I want to thank Martin, a listener from Germany, for pointing out (finding and telling us) our mistake. We try to be as accurate (correct) as possible in our podcasts, but sometimes there are errors.

~Jeff

Just a short note of thanks to all of you who emailed and posted comments on our third anniversary video and on Lucy’s post about my birthday. All of us here at ESL Podcast thank you for your kind comments and expressions of appreciation.

I am especially thankful to have received such nice comments on my 29th birthday. (I think that’s right – does 29 come after 44?)

Thank you again for all of your support!

~Jeff

Thanks to Bill from the University of Malaya for mentioning ESL Podcast in a recent article that appeared in the daily national newspaper, The Sun, in Malaysia.  We always appreciate our listeners and supporters mentioning ESL Podcast to their friends, family, newspaper reporters, dentists, hair dressers – well, anyone you think may be interested!

You can find the article (in English) here.

~Jeff

Many thanks to Professor Bill Templar of the University of Malaysia for his letter to The China Post last week. Professor Templar recommends ESL Podcast to those interested in improving their English.

You can see his letter published here.

~Jeff

As most of you know, you do not need an iPod or an iPhone to listen to ESL Podcast or any other podcast. But if you do have an iPhone or the new iPod Touch, you may be interested in listening to the podcast on your device.

One of our listeners, Orlando, has created a special iPhone version page of ESL Podcast. You can go to this address:

http://www.iphonestory.com/mobile/podcast.html#eslpodcast

and click on the ESLPod logo.

Thanks to Orlando, who also developed a special Mac widget for ESL Podcast last year. We appreciate your help!

~Jeff

There is now a new business English course in our ESL Podcast Store called Using English at Work. This course is designed to teach you basic business English vocabulary related to everyday activities at work, from arriving in the morning to leaving at the end of the workday. This is a 10 lesson course, with explanations by Jeff and the stories read by another native speaker, so you have a chance to hear other voices as well.

If you are interested in improving your business English, take a look at the fuller description here. We hope you enjoy it!

~Jeff, Lucy, and the ESL Podcast Team

I just discovered this very cool web service called Shared Copy. It allows you to make notes on web pages and share them with others. I tried using it and I think it may be useful for what we do here at ESL Podcast.

I took a news article from today’s Voice of America website and highlighted (made a different color) in yellow certain difficult words. Then on the side I put the definitions of these words so you can get some help if there is a word you don’t understand. It is even possible for you to go on to the page and put your own comments or questions (although in this first experiment, I turned the comments option off).

The article is about the subject of yesterday’s post, the sex scandal involving Governor Eliot Spitzer of New York. Take a look at it here and tell me what you think.

~Jeff

Apple’s iTunes-Japan has named ESL Podcast one of the “Best Podcasts of 2007,” one of only a 20 podcasts in Japan to receive this honor. We are very grateful for the recognition, and hope we can continue to provide useful podcasts in 2008.

Domo arigato (thank you), iTunes!

~Jeff