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

There was a nice article today in the Spanish-language financial newspaper, Diario Financiero, published in Santiago, Chile, about learning languages on the Internet. ESL Podcast is mentioned in the second part of the article, which talks about ways of learning different languages on the web. If you can read Spanish, you may be interested in it.

~Jeff

Are you wondering what to buy that special someone you know for the holidays? How about giving them the “gift” of English with an ESL Podcast Basic or Premium Membership? It’s much better than candy or a video game; it tastes sweeter and is much more fun than either of those things!

You can purchase a 6 or 12 month membership on our ESL Podcast Store. After you purchase the membership (either Basic or Premium), email us and we’ll email you a coupon code that you can then give to the person you’re giving the membership to.

How about some nice business or personal English courses for your loved ones?  We currently have 5 different courses, including English for Business Meetings,  Interview Questions Answered, A Day in the Life of Jeff, A Day in the Life of Lucy, and our English Though Stories’ mystery, Deadly Letters.  You can buy a gift certificate for one of these courses right on our ESL Podcast Store.

~Jeff (also known as “Santa Claus”)